Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Bookin' It

When our neighbor came over last night to return our house key, he had a package that the FedEx guy had delivered while we were on vacation. It was this little treasure.

As we got closer to the 1st birthday of our family blog, I started to panic. I mean, there are a lot of precious memories, photos, recipes and kidisms all spun into this neat little package online. But if something ever happened to Blogger? And it lost everything? So I started to research sites that publish blogs into books. I chose Blurb because their publishing options gave me the chance to choose book size and to have as little or as much (and knowing me, I wanted MUCH) control over page layout as I'd like. Lots and lots of options. They also have a little tutorial video that helped getting started a breeze. And the pricing is reasonable. You simply download the software and they upload your blog for you and you work on it at your convenience...the changes you make are saved automatically and when you have your book just how you like it, you "slurp" it up to their site and they send you a published book. The only downside I found, is that for Blogger, they can't access your comments and include them in your fnished book.

Tony is a great sport...he generally humors me, but I rarely see him get truly excited about any of my hare brained schemes. Until last night. He sat in our chair and flipped through the entire book, commenting again and again about how awesome it was. Yeah! Now I won't feel guilty for blogging because ACTUALLY, I'm creating our family history. So there.

**UPDATED**

I've had a couple of requests for some additional pictures of the inside of our blog book. Here are a few...sorry the pictures are not the best, but it will give you an idea at least.

I started my blog book on blurb at the beginging of the year we are so excited to get it published. I have enjoyed blurb and, it has been a nice scrapbooking substitute for me since I just don't have time anymore. It looks good!

I am so glad that you shared the book with us!! I have been wanting to do this, but wasn't quite sure where to do it on line. I am so excited now to make our book. Glad your family had such a wonderful time in AK. It made me miss being there more then I thought...

I am so going to idea steal and do one for us each year, too! Our computer crashed a few months ago and I had a nervous breakdown~ much like I'd do if we lost our blog! But, my dear friend's hubby "found" all of our pics on the broken computer and saved me from being committed! You should show us a few pics of some of your fav pages! Thank you a million times over for sharing this tidbit with us in blogland! And, thanks for your sweet comment about Miss Priss the other day! Hugs, L

Alright, now I really have an idea how it all works! You are an absolute DOLL for taking the time to snap a few pics. And look at how organized you are to even add the link to the ORIGINAL post? You blow my mind! Thanks again hun! I told my hubby about the books from blogs and he was impressed with the idea, too! Normally he's just a 'whatever you like honey' type of man but I could tell he really 'heard' me when I mentioned this! Lots of hugs~ Les

OMGOSH..THANK YOU so much for posting about this. I have been toying with the idea of doing this...and so happy to see someone that I actually KNOW has tried it and loved it. To be honest, I'm a little frightened at how much mine will cost for only ONE YEAR of my blog. As you know, I'm a little TALKATIVE. LOL! ;-)

Awesome! I was sent here by Les @ Our Complete Family...I love this! I'll send my sister over,as well! I want to personally invite you to Screaming Meme's Faux School....I am teaching a continual class on different techniques for furniture and walls...I hope you get a chance to pop in...The next class is tomorrow! :)